IN The Name of God The Moai of Easter Island Abstract
Easter Island: a small island in Pacific Ocean, which belong to Chile. Many tourists go to Easter Island to see the several hundred stone heads, some of which are 20 meters tall, which were made over a thousand years ago. (Reference: Longman dictionary of contemporary English) Keywords: Moai, Easter Island, Pacific Ocean, Chile, stone heads
Easter Island was named by a Dutchman, Jacob Roggeveen, who arrived there on Easter day, 6 April 1722, but its native name is Rapa Nui, sometimes translated as center of the earth . Nearly 4,025 km from the coast of Chile and 4,185 from Tahiti. This island is a triangular volcanic rock of just 17 square kilometers, and is one of the most isolated places on earth the top of highest of its three volcanoes, which are now extinct is 511m above sea level. Currently, the island has 3,000 inhabitants and a single town, Honga Roa, Easter Island or Rapa Nui is now a nature reserve and is governed by Chile. The island is particularly known for the large statues or sculptures, called Moai, which are found there. In 1989, the Chilean government invited Giuseppe Orifici, an Italian archaeologist, to visit the island. Impressed by the wealth of archaeological remains, orifice arranged being digging the following year He co-ordinated a team of experts, each a specialist in their own field, who visited the island for several week over the next ten year. These specialists ranged from archaeologist and anthropologist to botanist and sculpture experts. Scientist once believed that the Rapa Nui people had originally come from South America around the 7th century.
However, a few surviving tradition, as well as the shapes of some of the sculptures, show that the people are from Polynesia and probably arrived on the island in the 5th century. Recent research on bone and teeth strongly supports this theory while anthropologist DR. Andrea Drusini and professor Daris Swindler were carrying out research on teeth from various sites on the island, they found that something known as a genetic bottleneck had occurred. On a small island, where people never marry outside their own clan, inbreeding is inevitable, and as a result the gene pool for each group is narrow. A particular feature, such as large or missing teeth, then shows up within family members with much more regularly than would otherwise be expected and this enabled the scientists to prove where the people had originally come from. Bones were found mostly in burial chambers beneath the Moai, it is though that the social and economic power of a clan chief was measured by the size and number of Moai he had, so there was fierce competition between clan chief to build the biggest and best. Usually, each chief had between one and 15 Moai on his family s tomb, all of which were between 3m and 8m tall.
More were constantly being built- in total, nearly 12,000 are thought to have been made, using rock from the Rano Rarku volcano. The largest of the Moai found by Orifici s team was 33m tall and weight nearly 300 tonnes. Sometimes the sculptures were engraved one has carving of a boat while others have large or small eras, depending on the clan that built them. Most have a Pukao- a kind of hat red volcanic rock. Completed Moai were arranged to face in towards the island, and played an important part in the religion of the island. Islander worshiped them as ancestors who had become gods. The building of Moai and the religion associated with it lasted until the 16th century. A number of factors led to its collapse and the near collapse of the Rapu Nui people, including population growth and the destruction of the forest. But it seems that the main reason was that the religion had simply got too big for the island. More and more people were building ever larger Moai and they weren t spending enough
time growing food or fishing. The fish close to the shore were hunted to extinction and increasing number of trees were destroyed to use as rollers to transport the Moai when there were no more trees, the land lost its fertility, people starved and there was no wood to build boats to escape. Luckily, a new, less demanding, religion grew up during the 17th century, which saved the islanders and enabled limited resources to be shared out more fairly. Europeans arrived in the 18th century and destroyed much of what remained by interdicting foreign diseases and importing a few species which destroyed the native plants and animals. It was also at this time that the key to the Rapa Nui written language was lost. The history of Rapa Nui and its people should be warning to us all in the 21st century- to take care of our natural recourse before it is too late. (Reference: Michael Black& Wendy Sharp, objective IELTS (intermediate), Cambridge university press 2006.)
Translation: ramin adibi, SIA-UA* membership Email:ramin.adibi2012@gamil.com Group Email sia-underwater-archaeology@googlegroups.com
(Reference: Longman dictionary of contemporary English
Rapa Nui Easter
Tahiti
Jacob roggeveen Easter day
(Honga Roa ) Rapa Nui
Moai
Giuseppe orifici
Rapa Nui
genetic bottleneck Polynesia
Daris Swindler
Drusini
Moai
Rapu Nui
Rano Rarku
orifici
Rapu Nui
Reference: Michael Black& Wendy Sharp, objective IELTS (intermediate), Cambridge university press 2006
Rapu Nui
Jacob roggeveen
Easter island map
volcano maintains map
moai burial chambers
Moai on family tomb
One of the largest moai
Moai figure
Moai with red hat built from red volcanic rock
Other interesting photos from moai
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